Elon Musk tested in court on Tuesday as part of his lawsuit against OpenAI. Among the details that stood out in Musk’s statement were his motivations during the founding of the company and his disagreements with Google founder Larry Page.

Musk stated that one of the main reasons he founded OpenAI was his disagreement with Larry Page regarding artificial intelligence security. In a conversation between the two, Musk mentioned the possibility of artificial intelligence destroying humanity, and stated that Page found this situation acceptable, provided that artificial intelligence continues to exist.

Artificial intelligence security and broken friendship

Musk stated that Page called him a “special” for being pro-human and described this attitude as “crazy”. These statements brought to light new details about the past friendship of two businessmen who were once very close.

In 2016, Fortune magazine included Musk and Page in its list of business leaders who are secret best friends. Musk had such a close relationship with Page that he stayed at his home in Palo Alto at the time, and Page said in an interview with Charlie Rose that he would rather give his money to Musk than donate it to charity.

However, this close friendship ended with the founding of OpenAI. Musk stated that when he persuaded Google artificial intelligence expert Ilya Sutskever to start the company in 2015, Page personally felt betrayed and cut off communication.

Court affidavit process

Musk had previously told this story in his biography written by Walter Isaacson. However, the hearing held on Tuesday attracted attention as it was the first time these allegations were recorded as a sworn statement.

While Larry Page did not make any statement on the issue, it is reminding that Musk’s statements are part of an ongoing situation.

In an interview with Lex Fridman in 2023, Musk stated that they had remained friends for a long time and that he wanted to fix the situation between them.

So how do you think such personal disagreements in the technology world affect the future of companies?